Amy Goodman and Juan González interview journalist Matt Taibbi about Trump’S election.

 

Key comment:

 

“MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, and I think that was kind of a big oversight by a lot of the media. Trump—look, how do politicians get elected? There’s a very simple formula that people on both sides have followed for ages. They tell people that, you know, things are bad, and we’re going to give you somebody to blame. You know, on the right, they’ve traditionally pointed the fingers at minorities and foreigners. And on the left, we point at corporations, you know, the pharma companies, insurance companies, etc., etc.

 

“Trump did all of those things. He appropriated all of those bogeymen, both the liberal and the conservative bogeymen, but he also made the campaign process itself a villain. He said, “These people, these reporters, these donors, these two entrenched political parties, they are against you.” And unfortunately for us reporters, we were the only people from that particular group who were actually in the room during these events. So what he would do is he would say, “Look at these people. Look at these bloodsuckers. You know, they’ve never come so far for an event. And they didn’t want to come. They all said I was going to lose,” etc., etc. And the crowds would physically turn toward us and start, you know, sort of hissing and booing. And he made us part of this kind of WWE act. And it was—in a way, it was brilliant theater. And I think that the people on the campaign plane didn’t understand the significance of what he was doing. He was villainizing the process. And it was really effective.”